717: Raghu Markus

Summary

DUNCAN TRUSSELL FAMILY HOUR – EPISODE 717: RAGHU MARKUS
October 10, 2025

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Overview:

This episode of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour sees Duncan joined by Raghu Markus, director of the Love Serve Remember Foundation and longtime friend/disciple of Ram Dass and Neem Karoli Baba. Against a backdrop of current global and national turmoil, Duncan invites Raghu for a soulful exploration of love, division, protest, activism, and how to “cool off” the polarities tearing society apart. Tangling with themes of righteous anger, spiritual bypassing, the pitfalls and promises of activism, and the possibility of a revolution powered by love rather than hate, the conversation turns deeply honest, lively, and philosophical.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Spiritual Guidance in Dark Times

• Duncan notes “Times are weird. People feel uneasy or terrified… I wanted people on who might help us cool down a little bit.” (00:05)
• He brings up Raghu’s unique experience bridging the worlds of Maharaji (Neem Karoli Baba), Ram Dass, and contemporary activism.

2. Historical Perspective & Present-Day Upheaval

• Duncan asks Raghu: How do the current apocalyptic-feeling times (social unrest, political violence) compare to prior eras like the 1960s and 70s?
• Raghu recounts (05:09) learning from mentor Danny Goldberg to contextualize today: “Whenever I would say, ‘this is the worst of times.’ Yeah, well, not quite…”
• Raghu shares a pivotal quote from Ram Dass about the 60s:

  “The problem was… we underestimated the power of fear… The sixties polarized the culture because it was naive… I now see that the naivete with which we embraced our idealism fed the fundamentalist and right wing movement in the United States.” (08:00)

3. Ram Dass’ Legacy – Bridging Activism and Spirituality

• The conversation pivots to unifying, rather than dividing. Duncan: “I know his view of things as a whole instead of othering people…” (11:08)
• They discuss cycles of protest and repression, questioning the effectiveness of violence vs. love-based resistance.
• Duncan asks about the “dance” of polarization:

  “Both sides have to be there… It’s like a hurricane forms. I don’t think hurricanes want to be there… But is that a fair analysis of what [Ram Dass] might say?” (13:32)

4. Addressing Violent Protest and Justified Rage

• Duncan roleplays as a violent protestor (18:16), channeling their perspective:

  “If I sit by and meditate in my fucking apartment and burn incense while children are being ripped from their parents, who the fuck am I? Meditating is not going to do shit.” (20:00)

• Raghu relates a real instance of this sentiment among spiritual friends:

  “One particular person— a woman—said, ‘That’s great the book’s coming out. Meanwhile, can we hang so-and-so?’” (22:02)

5. The Limits of Anger and Cycles of Violence

• Pragmatic inquiry: Does force against force increase justice?
• Duncan argues:

  “Now you commit violence… Now you’ve justified their violence with your violence… If violent resistance worked, we’d be living in a utopia right now.” (25:04)

• Raghu: “All of history. Just look at it. This is not new… hopefully in our potentially more enlightened state, we can look inside ourselves and see that hate and anger beget exactly the opposite.” (27:28-27:32)
• Both agree: violence perpetuates cycles but is seductive because it gives a sense of control and righteousness.

6. Unconditional Love: Power, Misconceptions, and Real Practice

• The “hardest part”: how to tap love instead of hate in activism and daily life.
• Raghu invokes Martin Luther King:

  “When that man spoke, you could feel the love in his being… The pushback has to be there, but a lot of the success depends on not having hate in your heart.” (28:37-29:17)

• Duncan: “That love is grounded in reality, not ignoring suffering… There’s another way to do this.” (30:13-41:21)
• Discussion of Gandhi’s Salt March: nonviolence as illumination of oppression.

7. The Human Side—Acknowledging Nuance and Pain

• Anne Lamott, writing in the new Ram Dass book:

  “You can tell you’ve created God in your own image when he or she hates all the same people you do. We’re taught black and white and what has gotten us into trouble is this win-or-lose consciousness… Real life has subtleties and layers.” (32:22-33:18)

• Both note the privilege of even being able to discuss these issues abstractly, not from a place of direct trauma:

  “Thank God you and me are never going to know what it’s like to remove rubble from on top of our dead children.” (37:34-38:27)

• Raghu: “I don’t think we have a chance in hell unless somebody comes that is at least a replicate of Martin Luther King…” (23:13)

8. Pragmatic Methods: Inner Work as Outer Activism

• “The only option we have is figuring out a way for some kind of revolution fueled not by hate, but by love.” (52:52)
• Raghu:

  “How do I do it—is the starting point… The question is a privilege that we have… We need to take that privilege and share it as much as possible by being inside ourselves in a way that is not polarized. The thing inside ourselves that’s polarized is what manifests outside.” (54:18-57:09)

• Emphasis on honest self-reflection, acknowledging reactive anger, and working with it: “You start looking at that reactivity…” (54:46-55:11)
• Importance of community for spiritual resilience: “Being together, where we can first of all drop that at the door…” (57:11)
• “Work on yourself while you are doing whatever you can for anybody, for what you believe in, in a completely peaceful way.” (75:56)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On 1960s Intent and Naiveté:

  “Those of us who had experienced that quality of love had such a sense of the power of love that we underestimated the power of fear… the sixties polarized the culture because it was naive.” – Ram Dass (read by Raghu, 08:00)

• On Protest and Reciprocal Violence:

  “Now you’ve killed. Who knows, you shoot one of these people, they’re a dad. Now you have justified their violence with your violence… If violent resistance worked, we would be living in a utopia right now.” – Duncan (25:04)

• On Genuine Love in Action:

  “The pushback has to be there, I am sure… but a lot of the success of whatever you’re trying to do is dependent on not having hate in your heart. That’s the tough thing.” – Raghu (29:17-35:52)

• Humor Amidst Intensity:

  “You know what I am? I’m someone who’s got BlueChew in one of his drawers. I can chomp those babies up and Lazarus is raised from the dead.” – Duncan (36:00, after a commercial break, keeping the tone human and light at times)

• On the Reality of Pain and Privilege:

  “My day-to-day suffering compared to someone who is going to be traumatized for the rest of their lives… So I want to acknowledge that first… Yes, you are not wrong. Your feelings are. Yes. You’re not malfunctioning right now.” – Duncan (38:35)

• On the Limits of Love as a Concept:

  “Love—for many people this word is slightly cringe-worthy… it’s a bit of a dirty word. Maybe going too far.” – Raghu (45:15)

• On Unconditional Love:

  “It is not going to anesthetize you… Not going to numb you, not going to make you feel like you’re doing the right thing… You have to subvert at the very core of your being, transactionalism, and you have to give up the idea you’re getting anything back.” – Duncan (68:27-69:52)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00–01:27: Duncan introduces Raghu, frames the state of the times as “weird” and potentially terrifying; episode sets aim at finding “the place of love inside us.”
• 04:05–08:00: Raghu and Duncan contextualize the current crisis with stories from the 60s, personal anecdotes.
• 08:00–10:54: Raghu shares a long excerpt from Ram Dass’s new book, diagnosing the “naïvete” and polarization of the 60s and the lessons it holds for today.
• 18:16–25:04: Duncan play-acts as a protestor advocating violence, gets Raghu’s/“Ram Dass’s” response.
• 27:28–35:52: Both examine cycles of violence, Martin Luther King/Gandhi-style resistance, the challenge and necessity of love without hate.
• 32:22–34:15: Anne Lamott’s words on the danger of black-and-white thinking.
• 52:27–57:09: What can you actually do? The mechanics and privilege of inner work as outer action.
• 68:27–69:52: Unlearning transactionalism, learning uncomfortable, unconditional love in practice.
• 75:32–76:55: Raghu on action—working on oneself while engaged in the world.
• 77:21–77:36: “Why not put the Sermon on the Mount in schools?” – Discussing the deeper message of compassion in Christianity, not just rules.

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Actionable Wisdom and Takeaways

• Revolutionary love is not passive: It fuels nonviolent resistance, is historically effective, and is as tough (if not tougher) than violence or hate.
• Activism and self-work must go together: It’s not “work on yourself then act.” It’s simultaneous – keep checking the heart even as you engage in action.
• Embrace discomfort: True love (in the revolutionary, spiritual sense) is deeply uncomfortable and disrupts “righteousness” and identity games.
• Be skeptical of easy answers: Both violence and “bypass spirituality” offer seductive, simple solutions – but the conversation continually returns to honest, hard self-examination.
• No “othering” – start within: The polarization in society reflects our internal separations; the “movie of me to the movie of we.”
• Curiosity and shared humanity: Cultivate curiosity about “the other” as a path to healing.

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Closing Quotes:

“Maybe this is going to go a lot further… and maybe that darkness has to produce— the only way light happens is through darkness.” – Raghu (47:53)

“The only option we have is figuring out a way for some kind of revolution fueled not by hate, but by love.” – Duncan (52:52)

“Work on yourself while you are doing whatever you can for anybody, for what you believe in, in a completely peaceful way." – Raghu (75:32)

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Further Resources:

• Raghu Markus: Mindrolling Podcast
• Love Serve Remember Foundation: Website
• Ram Dass, There Is No Other: The Way to Harmony and Wholeness (2025)

For listeners new or old, this episode is a deep well of inspiration, humility, and challenge—urging us all to look at the “thick, bubbling sludge” over our hearts, and have the courage to try something different.

Transcript

[A]

Greetings, friends. It's me, Duncan, and this is the Duncan Trestle Family Hour podcast. And today.

[B]

Whoa.

[A]

What a great episode we have for you today. I wanted to do a spiritual string of episodes, or at least people who I feel like have something to say that might help some of us or all of us cool down a little bit. Times are a little weird. People feel a bit uneasy or absolutely terrified. And today's guest. Oh, my God, he really laid it down. And I know maybe some of you feel a little cynical right now and don't want to hear some kind of hippie spiritual stuff, but that means you definitely should listen to this episode. Raghu runs the Love Serve Remember Foundation. He was dear friends with Ram Dass. He had the good karma and good fortune to spend time with. With the great guru Neem Karoli Baba, an awakened being, the same awakened being that inspired Ram Dass to write Be Here Now. And we had a very frank and, I think, very powerful conversation about how do we find that place of love inside of us that for many of us seems to be covered up by a thick, bubbling sludge of Lovecraftian hate. So, everybody, welcome back to the dtfh.

[B]

Raghu Marcus, he had a beautiful hairpiece and he went there and your father.

[A]

Went to see Maharaj and brought his hairpiece to India.

[B]

He brought it along with him. He wore it.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And can you imagine?

[A]

Pain in the ass in India?

[B]

Anyhow, by the end of that, whatever, he spent a few weeks there the first time. By the end of it, poop, it was gone. And Maharaj never said a word to him about nothing. It was gone.

[A]

That's polite, you know? You know, if someone wants to wear a hairpiece, why shame them? They're shaming themselves. You know, for those of you just joining us, Raghu, prior to me pressing record, said, what happened to you? Is that a hairpiece?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Hey, I want to talk.

[A]

Let's talk about.

[B]

You have an agenda.

[A]

Peace. As in P E A C E. That could be the name of this podcast. Hair Peace. And I don't. I don't think I really. You know, my. Though I did interrupt the series I was trying to do after Charlie.

[B]

What were you doing, by the way? Can you tell me what. What series? What were you doing?

[A]

Well, after Charlie Kirk got assassinated and everybody became. It was already a powder keg. And then at least online, it became a.

[B]

Everywhere, all conversations, everything, I'm sure.

[A]

And so I thought, all right, dammit, I'm going to listen to my hippie friends like you who are like, why don't you use your platform responsibly? I'm going to have people on who have the potential to cool things off a little bit, or at least offer some perspective that isn't grounded in the maelstrom of politics that all of us find ourselves.

[B]

Yeah. So what happened, though? What happened to you just said that you stopped it or.

[A]

Well, only because I. Well, my own bad scheduling. Because I fucked up. You were supposed to be last week and I fucked up. I wasn't able to do it. And whatever I rambled about in the last solo episode, I'm sure it wasn't. It wasn't worth anything, so I messed it up. But, yeah, I just wanted to start having my spiritual friends on. To get your perspective on this current incredibly apocalyptic, fiery, confused, angry place that not just America, but I think the planet finds itself in.

[B]

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.

[A]

But you've been through it. You've been through. You've been flopping around this ball of dirt a little bit longer than I have. So you experience Vietnam, you experienced Kent State, you experienced so many moments of political upheaval in this country that this must not seem brand new to you. I mean, it's certainly anyone.

[B]

I would. But I would advise you. This is terrible, but there's nothing I can do. I did a podcast with Danny Goldberg. You know, Danny is. Yeah, Danny.

[A]

But they might not.

[B]

Oh. So Danny Goldberg ran a number of labels from Warner Brothers to polygram, when there was a polygram and so on. And I. I did. We had a label back then, a small indie label that he took on as part of his. The conglomerate of labels. And we. We had known each other from a long time back, actually, through a spiritual teacher, Hilda Charlton. That's a whole other. I don't even know if I ever talked to you about it.

[A]

I don't think you did.

[B]

No, no. That's a whole other thing. Interesting thing, but some other time. Anyhow, he became very involved from the get go in politics, and he's a lefty, and he would host fundraisers at his beautiful place in. In Greenwich Village. And so he was really there. But the. Why this triggered me is because, you know, say, hey, getting a. A maybe a little bit more of a historical perspective. Because whenever I would say, this is the worst of times. Yeah, well, not quite. Let's go back. And he would go back in history and talk about other occasions where you really tough stuff was going on.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So I did a podcast with him last week. I think it's out right now anyhow it's the last couple of one. It is so measured about what is going on now. The best thing I've heard about that. So go to mind rolling on the Behear now network and you can get.

[A]

A great podcast by the way. Truly, truly.

[B]

Thank you and thank you. Thank you. But you know what? What, what let me. Because you yeah you did say something and talked about when I came up 6,070s as a kid and it led me to say to read something. I actually had this in my head that I wanted to bring this up. I thought it would be a good conversation starter. Duncan and this is from and I'm so sorry everybody to do a. A little commercial in the middle of Duncan Trussell Family Hour.

[A]

But I do commercials in the middle of my podcast all the time. Go ahead.

[B]

They're for you. Anyhow, it's. We have a new book coming out me as the director of the Love for Love server member foundation from Ram Dass first posthumous book since he left six years ago called There is no Other and how how to move towards wholeness instead of staying in the divide that we, you know vast divide that we are in right now. So it's a perfect book for the times. And we called the best talks of Ram Dass around this particular subject. And then we invited Annie Lamott had something great to say and all of a sudden the friends that you know quite well, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Cornfield can't.

[A]

Help but notice I didn't get a.

[B]

Yeah, the book is on the way to.

[A]

You didn't get an invite to. To write something for the book.

[B]

Feel like I. Oh, you didn't get that. Yeah. Well.

[A]

Huh.

[B]

Talk to Ram Dass about. So this is an excerpt from the book. Okay. And it speaks to exactly what you just mentioned about me. When we got free in the 60s, then suddenly it was the empowering of the individual heart, the intuitive heart that said, hey, there's work to do in civil rights, there's work to do in sexual freedom. There's work to do with women's issues and gay and lesbian issues. There's work to do with foreign policy and the anti Vietnam movement. There was a link between the intuitive heart of individuals and the feeling of rightness or appropriateness between that and these dissonant institutions that were out of line. The problem was that those of us who had experienced that quality of love had such a sense of the power of love that we underestimated the power of fear. Tim Leary and I had a chart on our wall in Millbrook a geometrically rising curve showing how fast everyone would get enlightened. Wow. It did involve putting LSD in the water supply. But other than that it was not terribly dramatic. It seemed so inevitable and irrevocable because the experience was so powerful and so irreversible once it had happened that we started to surround ourselves with other people who had experienced. Kennedy was in office and lots happening in Haight Asprey and the rock and roll movement. Minstrels like Dylan were carrying these messages of the relative nature of reality that undercut the power of any one point of reality. The carriers of Native American wisdom were our elders instead of objects of sadism. What happened to us in the 60s was so strong that we assumed everybody would fall before it, but they didn't. There were the people who didn't have that experience. They experienced. They experienced was that the whole social structure in which they had power was under attack. They got frightened and they pushed against it. In that sense, the 60s polarized the culture because it was naive. It only understood its own perception and assumed its perception with spread by osmosis. I now see that the naivete with which we embraced our idealism fed the fundamentalist and right wing movement in the United States.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

That's so present.

[A]

How beautiful that he admits it. That's so powerful. I think that is a fair analysis and a brilliant analysis.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the. Well, and I've heard of other. I know that his view of things as a whole instead of this or that or othering people. I can't remember which lecture, but I remember him talking about how one side tends to hold up the other side, even if they seem opposed.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

One side is, you know, for example, let's look at what's happening in Portland, Chicago. We've got Trump is sending the National Guard, the military into the cities. This has always been the nightmare of any garden variety conspiracy theorist. This has been what people like Alex Jones have been saying was going to happen. Totalitarianism will come, the military will be in the streets. But because it's coming from the right and not from the left, it does seem like some of those people are being a little quiet about it, even though it's the exact thing that they prognosticated. And so we have this. This is happening. We've all dreaded it. Any. I have. I don't. You know me. I remember when we first met. I'm like, why don't we start throwing Molotov cocktails off this? Now it's coming. And suddenly here it is. The Military in the streets of our country. The President saying it's a war within, meaning that the military that we've been, God knows how much every single individual in America has been paying for this military force via taxes is now coming into the streets of our cities and the military does it. I think the military wants to do it even like less than anyone. I don't think they want to be there. They don't want to fucking. They didn't sign up to like potentially use lethal force on the country that they wanted to defend. It's madness. So to get back to the original point and correct me if I'm wrong here, it seems like Ram Dass would look at both sides of this and see how the one side is. What's going to happen inevitably is people are going to come out in the streets to protest the military being there. And then all it takes is one person off their fucking meds or whatever to come there with a gun, fire on the military, the military fires back. That's the match in the powder keg right there. And so you see how both sides are doing this terrible dance and no one wants to be doing the dance. That's the saddest part. I'm pretty sure that the people Trump is freaked out about on the streets, I'm pretty sure they'd rather be at bars looking at them. I'm pretty sure they'd rather be having fun at a bar. I don't think they want to be fucking in like black masks getting pepper sprayed. And I'm damn sure the ICE people don't want to be there either. I don't think anybody wants to be there. That's the really ironic thing. Of course there's a few people, there's sociopaths everywhere. So no doubt there's some state operatives who are getting off on the power and no doubt there's some messianic activists who are getting off on the drama. But the good hearted, most of the people, when I'm looking at it, nobody. It's just other than getting high off the drama, it doesn't look fun, you know. But both sides have to be there. One side has to be there for their own reasons, the other side has to be there for those. And then you get this mess. It's like a hurricane. It's like watching a hurricane form. I don't think hurricanes want to be there. I think they'd just rather be like nice mild waves than wind. But is that a fair analysis of what he might say? Fabric by Gerber Life is term Life insurance you can get done today. Made for busy parents like you, all online, all on your schedule, right from your couch. You could be covered in under 10 minutes with no health exam required. And that's incredible, friends. That's incredible. Somehow I did manage to get life insurance, but. Oh, let me tell you, they examined this old crusty son of a bitch. Blood tests, checks. I felt like I'd been abducted by aliens. The amount of blood they sucked out of my body, scrutinizing every one of my cells. Somehow I got the insurance, but it wasn't fun. And honestly, it does feel good to know if I'm out there on the road and keel over, if I wake up in the middle of the night, geyser and blood out of my mouth because of some unknown ailment, if I suddenly find myself walking into the light, my last moments before my next incarnation don't have to be worrying about what my darling wife is going to do to take care of my darling children. Also, you know, you do feel a little paranoid. I mean, I watch Dateline. Join the thousands of parents who trust fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just [e-mail] Duncan that's meetfabric.com Duncan M E E T fabric.com Duncan Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions.

[B]

I mean, I think that's a little too black and white rational about, you know, how he might I. What he is doing in this book is getting at what is and. And through this. That part of the book that I read that excerpt, admitting that we contributed. Meaning, you know, because it was we back then and we contributed to making this. So that's the us we contributed to making the theme and that in this book. What he's trying to get at, what's the source of that reality of othering people? What is the source of that? How do we break through that?

[A]

Okay, let me take a side so you can talk to a side. It's not how I believe someone will clip this and make it seem like this is what I think. Nothing I can do about that. But I am now going to take the side of a violent protester, someone who's willing to use violence. And I'm take their side now. Okay. And then I want. I would love it if you could channel Ram Dass or just yourself. How would you respond to this? Okay. I think I can voice what they have to say. Forgive me for those of you out there on the streets, If I parrot you in a way that is obtuse, listen, no offense, I appreciate the hippie stuff, I do. And believe it or not, even though right now imagine I'm in like, I'm wearing a black face mask and a weird backpack and I've got like shit to get the pepper spray out of my eyes and I'm packing heat somewhere in there too. I get it. And. But here's the problem. Children are being dragged into vans by masked men who don't even have to show id, and we don't know where they're going. The men who are doing this don't seem to have any repercussion for what they're doing. The people who are being thrown into these vans, we aren't really quite sure where they're going. They're not getting legal representation. They're not being protected in any way, shape or form. And the places that we do know they're taking them are horrific. Limited access to water, to food. Some of them are being deported to places that they didn't even come from and thrown into horrific prisons there. I'm afraid that meditation is not going to do shit about that and that the only thing that is going to work right now is countering their violence with our violence. And if I thought otherwise, I wouldn't be here. But as far as I can tell, this is all we've got left. Nobody wanted to get to this place. But if I sit by and meditate in my fucking apartment and burn incense and chant Ram, Ram while little children are getting ripped away from their fucking parents, then who the fuck am I and. And how can I sleep at night? I'm speaking from the. I'm speaking from their perspective. And then I'd love to know what you think.

[B]

I hear you, listen. I mean, I. This is an anecdote to what you're saying, but I introduced the fact that this book is going to become available here in October 2025.

[A]

I'm gonna pirate it. I'm still the antifa guy. I'm not gonna buy it. I'm gonna pirate it. That's what I do. I'm a hacker too.

[B]

Anyhow, I was with a group of friends, people who had been practicing, quote, unquote meditation and had a perspective, a spiritual perspective about who we are and where we are going, purpose in our lives, wonderful people. So I said, yeah, isn't this great? We're going to do this, you know, help, you know, just cut. Cut down on the polarization. So. And they went, one particular person a Woman actually said, that's terrific. That's great that this book is coming out. Meanwhile, can we hang so and so.

[A]

Holy shit. That's the mood.

[B]

I went, holy shit. Are you what? And that's really what you're. You're saying It's a knee jerk thing. You know, and I listen, meditation isn't going to do anything. I mean, you use that in a. You know, obviously I'm being a little.

[A]

Hyperbolic as this character, but, you know, I've read enough Reddit comments that I do feel like I can embody the sentiment here. And it is the sentiment that your friend apparently has. And the sentiment is, why are they allowed to use these violent techniques? And that's okay. Why are they allowed to use force? And if they are allowed to use force and we neuter ourselves by not using counter force, then how in the world is that going to stop anything? Again, everybody, I'm just voicing what I think think is. Is a meme out there in the hopes that we can get this. We can come up with an actual pragmatic response from someone who's been steeped in this world and has been with an enlightened being.

[B]

Yeah, listen, I honestly, I don't think we have a chance in hell unless somebody comes that is a, you know, at the very least, somewhat of a replicate of Martin Luther King.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Someone who has that kind of courage, who is not going to just say, we're getting shot, so we're gonna shoot back.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Someone is saying something that is. Cuts through that kind of thinking, that thinking that we are all separate. I'm a separate entity.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, and hey, where did we get off there? You know, where do we get off the train there? I mean, right. Since when? Even in any rational way, through economic stuff, through world trade, through all of it, we are interconnected. Not to mention, of course, the digital age. We are so interconnected. How can you possibly say something like that?

[A]

Well, I just, I think, like, yeah, I think that the problem is, like, you know, I've told this story before, but you're just reminding me of the time. The first time I met Ram Dass and the first thing I asked him is like, are you my guru? Everybody wants a guru. Not everybody gets to meet Neem Karoli Baba. And his response was with a big smile. Yeah, now what? And it was really funny because he popped the balloon. He wasn't really saying, I'm your guru, so much as saying, like, come on.

[B]

Well, he never would say anything about that. He was never Intimating he was anything but a teacher.

[A]

And I took that, I didn't take that to mean he's my guru. I took that as pointing to something in me that wanted somebody else to do the work for me. And in this case, I would say to my antifa character, okay, but now what? Now you commit violence. Now you use the force that the oppressors are using. Now you've killed. Who knows, you shoot one of these people, they're a dad. Now you have justified their violence with your violence. Now you have shown the world what you consider to be the right way to push back. And now what, what do we do now? Because the next step is, you know, Balkanization, civil war. And do you see somewhere at the other end of this justice? Do you actually see somewhere at the other end of this, the end of these atrocities because of your and your comrades violence? Can you honestly say that it would be effective, that it would work? And if you can't say with 100% certainty, this is the way you really want to roll the dice so that after a few years of horrific violence, you look back, nothing's changed other than more of your friends are dead and more people, whoever on the other side are dead. And now what? Nothing's changed. Things have just become more authoritarian and people are more scared. That would be my response. That's not exactly a Martin Luther King response. But I just don't see. I don't think that violence in this case or in most cases leads to anything other than further violence, further atrocity. I don't think that it. And also if it worked, Raghu, what if it worked, if violent resistance worked, we would be living in a utopia right now.

[B]

Because all of history, just look at it.

[A]

So it's not affecting history.

[B]

This is not new. This is not new. And hopefully in our potentially more enlightened state, we can go back and look inside ourselves and see that that hate and anger, it gets. Begets exactly the opposite. Exactly the opposite, right. Oh, but it feels good, you know.

[A]

It felt good being that character. It feels good.

[B]

Yeah. No, I know, I know it feels good to get angry, you know, I mean, I know I have anger problems. I think we both share a little bit of that. And yeah, you can feel the righteousness that comes in there and the power. And it feels like, oh, wow, I got control now. I'm going to blow this person away. Whatever it is, this is what we're missing. When I say Martin Luther, Dr. King, Martin Luther King, I'm talking about when that man spoke, you could hear the. You could feel, rather, the love in his being.

[A]

Right.

[B]

There was love. You could feel it.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, he wasn't a big guru or anything, Anything. Like, he wasn't espousing hippie beliefs, you know, spirituality that's based in bypassing.

[A]

He's a Christian.

[B]

He's a crazy. He was a true Christian. Absolutely. And, you know, I'm hoping. I mean, this is my own, you know, thinking about all this and seeing what's going on and feeling, you know, the horror of it, that we will support people who have some love in their heart. The pushback has to be there, I am sure.

[A]

Well, this is the problem, right? Because what's happening is, as an attempt to push back, you've got Gavin Newsom imitating Trump's tweets. The idea is, let's fight fire with fire. We're gonna use the exact same energy that we hate to push back against that same energy. Whereas Martin Luther King, as you're brilliantly pointing out, his energy seemed to be being piped in from a transcendent reality, and you can't fake that. And so when somebody is standing in front of God knows how many people saying, I have a dream, and inside their heart is not hate, but is also not. Is also not someone who is in a. Who hasn't seen people getting murdered, lynched, direct encounters with how.

[B]

Tremendous suffering.

[A]

So there's. It's. That love is grounded in reality. And even in the midst of that horrific reality that, you know, when you. I guess, if you want to look at, like, the antithesis to some degree of Martin Luther King, you go, malcolm X. And, you know, and he was fiery. Malcolm X was not saying nonviolence. And, you know, you look at him and you think about what he has experienced his entire life, and you're like, I get it, man. I get it. But when you see someone like Martin Luther King theoretically experiencing similar things.

[B]

Not theoretically.

[A]

I don't know. Honestly, my. I'm only saying that because, sadly, someone will be like, you have no idea about the difference between those two. They had different encounters in 1976.

[B]

Well, we don't. We don't.

[A]

So forgive me, say that, but Gandhi, for example, another example of, like, nonviolent resistance. The Salt March overthrew the British Empire, not with a revolutionary war like the United States did, but just pure nonviolent resistance. And something happens in that moment when you're seeing people who are being peaceful, protesting peacefully, getting fire hosed in the street. It illuminates the oppressive system. And sometimes that illumination is enough to create real social change because nobody wants to support that system. That seems to be where it becomes effective is when you let them crucify you instead of fight back. I'm sorry. I'm talking too much.

[B]

It is your podcast.

[A]

I know. But theoretically, you're my guest, so I'm not. I'm gonna shut the up and everyone out there. I apologize. That was.

[B]

You know. Let me read a little something else. You know Anne Lamont? You know Anne, right?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

We've had her in with us in many different instances at retreats and so on. She wrote a forward to the book. There is no other. I just want to read a little bit of it because it's directly addressing.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

She gets. She's a Christian, too, and she gets at the human part of us. So that's something we got to bring into this conversation. The human part.

[A]

Right.

[B]

She says it's human nature to take sides and to think that you're right and you speak for God. My great Jesuit friend Tom Wesson said, you can tell you've created God in your own image when he or she hates all the same people you do. So that's always a very good hint that you're a little off track. We're taught black and white, and what has gotten a lot of us into trouble is this black and white thinking, this win and lose consciousness. Much of social life isn't split into black and white. Real life has got subtleties and layers.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And complexities and nuance. There are two ways nowadays of looking at a stranger. When you're distrustful of somebody, you think they're going to take your food or your car or your right to vote or whatever. So you have the right to punish them and exclude them. Your instinct tells you that you have. That you have to for your own survival, or they've come here to trade with you and you have the right to be involved. It's a transaction. So you have to make sure that they don't cheat you and that they accept returns. We don't entirely trust anyone outside of our households and our sacred communities. We have fences and private properties and envy and a general sense that the people who live next door and don't definitely. The. The people who vote differently than we do are not of our tribe.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So we're still worried they're going to steal from us. They're going to. They're going to bargain unfairly with us, and we're going to come out on the losing end. So she's just speaking to the human part of us.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I say to you, you know, when we're talking about, you know, that here we are, and you played the role of somebody who's seeing the atrocity and wants to come back in exactly that manner. Right. I think that as many of us that can have some consciousness that this is not a black and white situation. And. And I love what you, you know, the. The ICE people who are part of that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You think that they want to be there. You said, no, they don't want to be there.

[A]

No, I don't think so.

[B]

And you don't think they want to be happy, which is holiness. Says we are. That's the one thing every being in this planet has a desire to be happy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So when we start to think about those things and then we think of our own polarization inside, which this book speaks to, and ramdos spoke to that better than anybody. Once we have that and, you know, it's like one heart. It's the only way is for hearts to open. Does that mean you don't go in Chicago, you know, to resist what's going on there? No, it doesn't, but it depends. A lot of the success of whatever you're trying to do is dependent on not having hate in your heart. That's the tough thing.

[A]

That's it. That's it. Yeah, that's it. And that is the toughest. That is the toughest thing. Because this episode of the DTFH has been supported by BlueChew. You know, guys, sometimes you need more than love. You need a throbbing erection like what you used to have in high school. And bluechew has helped achieve that goal. Yeah, sure, I'm not a fountain of pure, unconditional love, radiating glory, kindness, compassion, and sweetness to everyone on the whole planet. But do you know what I am? I'm somebody who's got Blue Chew in one of his drawers. I can chomp those babies up. And Lazarus is raised from the dead. That's a miracle, too. And we've got a special deal for our listeners. As always, get your first month of BlueChew Free. Just use promo code Duncan at checkout and pay five bucks for shipping. That's it. Join BlueChew's mission to upgrade humanity one thrust at a time. Head to BlueChew.com for details and safety info. And big thanks to BlueChew for sponsoring the podcast.

[B]

Because you got to work on yourself to. How do you. How do you, you know, listen, though? Let me just remove that.

[A]

Here's the thing. Instead of hate shaming people. You and I, we do have. We get angry and so I feel like if I know I can talk a lot more about hate experientially than I can talk. I can talk about compassion.

[B]

And don't say that about.

[A]

No, I don't mean. I'm saying what ends up. So this is what ends up happening accidentally because you're not doing this and I'm not intending to do it, but thank, thank God you and me are never going to know what it's like to remove rubble from on top of our dead children. Right? Like, like, like the Palestinians. Right. And, and we're never going to know that.

[B]

Or walking into the, you know, people being shot up out of nowhere. Yeah, never going to know that is never ending.

[A]

To have your child in a tunnel. Yeah, never going to know that. Never going to know that. I hope and, and so to, to sort of. And so for some, for me, you know, I've got hate in my heart, but my, the hate in my heart is because I broke my, I broke my fucking phone, Raghu. It's going to take me like 10 days to get a new phone. You know what hell I'm living in right now? You know what I mean? Like the kind of my day to day suffering compared to someone who is going to be traumatized for the rest of their lives and think about what happened to them every night before they go to bed. And right when they wake up, maybe they'll have a moment where they don't remember and then they'll remember. So I want to acknowledge that first. Meaning. Yes, that's one thing I think Ram Dass would say to somebody who is filled with that righteous hate and anger. Yes, you are not wrong. Your feelings are. Yes, they should. You, you're not malfunctioning right now. You've gotten a taste of what we're up against here and, and, and you, you've gotten a real taste. And you know what else would make me angry if I'd gotten that taste? Some motherfucker telling me not to be angry. That would make me even more angry. It's like, yeah, okay, I'll just cool down. You want me to just calm down a little bit? Okay, I'll cool off. Yeah. So that you could. So things are a little easier for you. I'll calm down. So I'm just saying I'm trying to fully acknowledge it. And my feeling is that when moments like this arise, when the moment that Martin Luther King responded to arose, not only did he make great change but he showed something to everyone. There's another way to do this. There's another way to do this. And in moments like this, there is an opportunity that appears. Because I think what's amazing about humans is like, out of the blue, will figure shit out that they thought you could never figure out. We're about to have fusion reactors. We're about to have like infinite free energy. We're going to cure cancer, we're going to grow hair back. We're going to do all kinds of incredible things. It's already happening for the first time in medical history, a child, stage three brain cancer. They cured it. Never done it before.

[B]

So wait, wait, I never heard.

[A]

I'll send you the article. It's amazing. It's a kind of aggressive brain cancer. They used some kind of new therapy, cured this kid. So what I'm saying is one thing when I'm feeling the hate or really down, is I remember there is a historic precedent for moments of novelty. Things that have never happened before happen, and generally they happen in response to horrible things. Martin Luther King being a case study. And so when you have these events happening, there is a moment where you're in the most depressing laboratory of all time. Nobody wants to be in this laboratory. No one's ever wanted to be in that laboratory. I'm sure Martin Luther King didn't want to be in that fucking laboratory. But here we are, we're in a laboratory where there is hate and violence and scary shit going on. And that means there's a chance for somebody to not just do what Martin Luther King did, but to do it 50 billion times better. Because he didn't have TikTok, he didn't have the Internet. Imagine if Martin Luther King had the Internet. Imagine if he had a podcast. Imagine. You know what I mean? Imagine if he could instantaneously connect with the whole planet. Woo. And I think that's what this moment is, Raghu. That's why these moments actually could potentially be incredible moments.

[B]

So you're saying these moments will produce what potentially might be a game changer in terms of the way we all feel about each other as separate individuals and don't give a shit about it.

[A]

Absolutely. And not in a bullshit way. In a real way. It can happen because anything can happen. I mean, will it happen? I'd say the odds are very slim. It'll probably just lead to more violent suppression, mass surveillance, digital id, complete authoritarian government, a crackdown across the entire planet, mass arrests, and eventually some kind of horrific technological police state that will impossible to escape from our organs being harvested to keep the dictators alive.

[B]

But thank you for this wonderful prognosis. Jesus God.

[A]

But there's also, in these moments, a chance. There is a chance. You know, when I remember when I was pushing the last time I saw him, I was pushing Ram Dass Abel in his wheelchair, he said, thank you for joining me in this revolution of love.

[B]

That was the last time you saw him?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I didn't know. You never told me that.

[A]

Yeah, it was the last retreat I saw him at. And to me, when he said that that was not spiritual bullshit. He saw what he was doing as revolutionary. He recognized it as revolutionary and he understood that this is a revolution that is fueled by something that he taught love and that it's not some hippie dippy bullshit. He never struck me as hippie dippy. He had an edge to him that I loved so much. And to me, that is the place we're at right now. There has to be a methodology other than the methodology most of us, including myself, have been using.

[B]

Yeah. You know, love. Just say the word and it. For many people, many, many, many people, this word is slightly cringe worthy.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You know, we did a thing with. I remember this many years ago with Sharon Salzberg, and it was around Ram Dass's new concept that he brought up while he was in Maui. Loving awareness.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And she said, you know, love, it's kind of tough. People think you're weak.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When you mention that word, you know, and just her saying that was like. Right, right. This is, this is, this is our unfortunate link to something that is more powerful than anything on this planet. In fact, people who know.

[A]

Right.

[B]

A lot more than me or you or anybody say that that is the. The interconnecting fabric of the universe is that. And. But it's a bit of a dirty word, maybe going too far. You know, because love. We love our mates, we love our families, we love. You know, it extends out as far as it can. Extends out, extend out.

[A]

But stops.

[B]

It's eh.

[A]

It stops.

[B]

Yeah, it stops. And that's the, that's the whole point. So this, what love is, is not the kind of, if you do this, I'll love you. If you don't do that.

[A]

It's not transactional.

[B]

Forget about it. It's transactional. Exactly. It's beyond that. And how do we find that place, which I do, I know beyond knowing exists in every one of us. And I got. Obviously I was really fortunate to be with a being who. That's all that was going on. There wasn't a matter of, okay, the next five minutes we'll have a meditation and on love. And it had nothing to do with that. In fact, he never told us to meditate. You know, so how do we get back to what that really means? And how do we share that? How do we share that? And most especially with people who maybe don't agree with us. And by the way, you know, we. You did the apocalyptic kind of dance on what's happening and where we're going with this. There's a doomer in me, you know.

[A]

There's a doomer in me.

[B]

Yeah, right. I. But the truth is, maybe this is going to go a lot further. And in a very sad way, this can go much further than where it is right now. And maybe that darkness, you know, that darkness has to produce. The only way light happens is through darkness. Right? So maybe that has to happen further before there to be any kind of change and before enough people acknowledge, hey, I'm not different than you.

[A]

I was listening to. I love that. And it made me think of the book of Job. And I was listening to. I had this great professor when I was in school and, you know, liberal arts school, so definitely like Christianity, not the top of the charts at a liberal arts school. But this professor, I remember him saying, I'll turn on AM Christian radio and listen to it, and I'll take something from it because I know how to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I can pick out from it something good. That's what he tried to teach is like, don't just turn off entire streams of data because parts of it offend you. There's gold and then they're hills or something there. Sometimes I'll do that, flip through the AM radio, do a little, like, bibliomancy, a little oracular work. Let's see what it has to say to me today. Pastor, talking about the book of Job, talking about how, you know, this ridiculous bet between God and the devil, God tells the devil, the devil comes to, God's like, you know, that's your greatest servant, Job. But that's just because he's got it easy. Let me fuck up his life. He's not going to care about you anymore. He only likes you because you're paying him. And God is like, okay, go ahead, do whatever you want, but don't kill him. Keep him alive and do whatever you want. And what this pastor said, Satan is like a junkyard dog on a very long chain. He was really cool, but like the. Basically, he talks about how, you know, Job gets fucked up, boils. I think his kids are killed. And his wife says, just curse God and die. She's freaked out like, you fucking asshole. And he said, if God kills me, I will still love God.

[B]

Whoa.

[A]

And that's love? That's love. It doesn't look like the bullshit Hallmark Channel thing. It is savage, it is wild. It is not tame, it is not domesticated. And it is the opposite of weak. It just seems crazy if you're worldly, it seems absolutely nuts. And, you know, this is a muscle you got to build. Because I'm telling you, Raghu, I can't do it. I can't. I want to. Like, on paper, I want to. When people are coming at me online, I want to be able to honestly feel legitimate love for them. I don't at all. And so I'm thwarted constantly by reality in this regard. So how. How did Neem Karoli Baba get there? How? Because I know he didn't want to be the only Neem Karoli Baba. I know he wanted other Neem Karoli Babas. So how. How do we do it? How do we do it? How do we do it? And not just for my petty grievances against anonymous strangers online. I'm talking about people with legitimate, justifiable grievances against systems of violence that have permanently damaged, if not destroyed, their lives, how to love them. And I don't mean other people did it. I mean, what's the method to get there?

[B]

You're saying, how do they love the oppressor?

[A]

How do we do it, Raghu? Yeah. How do you and me do it? What's the path towards this reality? If you're saying this is the. This is. This is. You didn't say this. I'm misphrasing, but I'm going to say it. I think this is the only option we have. If we don't want to live in an apocalyptic hellscape, we don't want our children to live in a.

[B]

What's the option?

[A]

The only option we have is figuring out a way for some kind of revolution fueled not by hate, but by love. It's the exact same thing the hippies were saying. But now the rubber has hit the road, and I feel like you're a link to that. And I don't think it was all failure. I think a lot of beautiful, incredible things have come from it. People come to me on the road all the time, telling me, thank you for introducing me to Ram Dass. It changed my life. The stuff that the Love Server member Foundation has tirelessly been radiating out into the world is changing people. Subjective experience of reality. But what I'm asking you is what is the method here? That in the face of this darkness, we can feel more than a fake kind of charlatan style, I love you. Or like in the south, how they go? God bless your. You know, what do they say, Josh? Bless your heart. They don't mean bless your heart. They mean I hope you fucking die. I hope an eagle rips your eyeballs out. So how do we.

[B]

Well, that's too general perhaps.

[A]

How do we do it for real? How do we do it for real? Yeah, man. We need it now. Now. Now. We need it now. It's now. It's not just about getting along with the person who farts next to you in the cubicle now. It's about like, this is real now. And so what's the.

[B]

What, what you're going, we. We. You're talking, how do I do it? We. No, it's. How do I do it? Is the starting point.

[A]

Okay. Yeah.

[B]

And. And everything you said about, you know, you see what's going on and you feel a kind of devastation of something inside.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. And it, it just brings this reactivity immediately.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Then you start looking at that reactivity. And for me, I, you know, I just. I see because we were talking about anger before.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you get angry and you get righteous.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

You know, and you feel that power. Yeah, that power is a. Is a feeling of control.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Okay. So.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

How do you deal with this? I mean, I am. So I, I look at this and, and look at it exactly the same way as I might be triggered into an angry state. I look at exactly the same. And how do I approach this inside myself now? You know, I have the privilege. You're kind of talking about it when you say neither of us have had to go through what people are going through now. Ripping, children, being ripped away.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

All of, all of it. And there's so many instances. And that privilege is a two way street. Yeah. We should look at that privilege and, and be very, very grateful. Just grateful to the. Whatever you want to call the thing that is in this universe that reflects the. Ourselves. The truth of who we are.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Whatever you want to call it. And I, you know, so the privilege of even asking the question.

[A]

Right.

[B]

How do I deal with this? Want to react, this feeling of the power of the anger that comes up. How do I just. That question is a privilege that we have.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We need to take that privilege and share it as much as possible by virtue of just being inside ourselves in a way that is not polarized. The thing inside ourselves that's polarized is the thing that manifests outside.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

And so how do we get at that? Well. Well, I mean, honestly, I mean, because of the work that I do representing Ram Dass and teachings and so on. You know what the best way, I mean, I see it more and more as things get really heavier, being together where we can first of all drop that at the door because you walk in and into a pavilion or whatever it may be, and you, your, you. Okay. I have to walk around wanting to kill people right now. You know, all of that. I mean, and then you start to build a little bit of a resilient muscle, you know, so that you can absorb the reality of what is this life. The hundred thousand horrible visions and the hundred thousand beautiful visions. Ram Dass's thing. We can be on more than one plane of. It's one of my favorite things from him, by the way. We can be on more than one plane of consciousness. At the same time, we can grieve for someone who's left us and we can love them in the deepest place that we did love them while they were in a body and know that that is not going anywhere. So we start to have a little bit more multiplicity in our day to day life. And that, yes, you do need to have some mindful consciousness, mindfulness consciousness. You need to be. We did a wonderful book, didn't we? Now I'm bringing that up. It's another commercial.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The movie of me. To the movie of we. Duncan and I talked about all of our wonderful habitual patterns and neurotic tendencies that we built into us. That's what everybody's dealing with. Everybody. Not. Not just left or right, you know, in the middle. Everybody's dealing with that. Dealing with the story we tell ourselves. And that makes us righteous in this particular situation.

[A]

Yeah. So I. I do want to talk a little bit about that thing. I want to go a little deeper into what you were saying about this sort of schizoid nature.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Inside us that, you know, that is. This episode of the DTFH is supported by my dear friends at Minnesota Nice Ethno Botanicals. Holy Lord in heaven. I am so lucky that they chose to sponsor my podcast because I was introduced not just to the miraculous Amanita muscaria. But I was sent Minnesota Nice Amanita muscaria. This isn't the garbage that you're going to find some side of the road Chevron. This is transcendent, incredible and wildly wonderful. I wouldn't advertise it if I hadn't tried it. And I was more than pleasantly surprised. You see, what's going on is somehow this incredible fungus works on the same neuroreceptors that drugs like Xanax that the benzos do. And wow, that is just incredible by itself. I love those neuroreceptors. I wish that that's all my brain was made of. Minnesota Nice Ethnopotanicals is your trusted source for high quality, ethically sourced plant medicines, especially Amanita Muscaria, helping folks find calm, healing and reconnect. Relying on pharmaceuticals. Founded by the great Christian Rasmussen, who harnessed Amanita to conquer his own Benzodiazepine withdrawal, a brutal battle that feels like recovering from brain damage. With endless anxiety, insomnia and nervous system chaos, they're on a mission to share this wisdom. Minnesota Nice Ethnobotanicals invites you to dive into this world of natural magic. Head to www.mnniceethno.com duncan and use code DUNCAN23 for 22% off order. I highly recommend starting with the Amanita muscaria capsules. And don't forget to add three to four Blue Lotus gummies for that extra dreamy boost. Most people start there and keep coming back for more. That's www m n I c e e t h n o dot com Duncan code Duncan 22. Check out the informational content on the site for safe use tips and let the law of revelation guide you. Much love. You know, sort of the. It's like the crust around where all the love is and you can't. It feels like it's almost impossible to get to the love without confronting that. Whatever that is, that goop, that thickness. It's dense, it's unyielding, it feels impenetrable and just calcified and just like it doesn't give a fuck about whatever your particular trip is related to it. It's like looking at a stone wall and saying, I love you. You're meant to be here. It's like, whatever, I'm not going any. You're not gonna love me away. And I feel like that place is. That's the first place people run away from. Because it's pain, man. It's pain. And then if you do manage to like meditate and meditation does help in this regard, or psychedelics or whatever.

[B]

You.

[A]

Have some help with some MDMA or something. And it. You. You manage to, like, walk through walls, which I feel like. So they were talking about. When they're talking about that city, they weren't talking about wall walls. They were talking about the only wall that matters, which is the one between you and your heart. And you feel it.

[B]

Another bad word. Heart.

[A]

They've ruined everything. Listen, I'm reclaiming all the words. I'm taking them all back. I'm taking back God. I'm taking about. I'm taking back inclusivity. I'm taking back diversity. I'm taking back equity. They're not going to take these words from us, man. They're not going to co op these fucking words. They're great goddamn words. And people cringe when you say them now. Or they say, oh, you must be some kind of fucking liberal, so fake piece of shit. No, these words are way older than America. And the things people think they mean now is not what they mean.

[B]

Love is way older than America.

[A]

Don't you ever say that again on this podcast. I'm in Texas now. They'll throw me out. No, you're right. But I guess what I'm saying is when you get to that place, it truly fucks up your shit. Because, man, we are committed to the satsang of sorrow. You understand, right? We are committed to our miserable compadres. We have taken. By now, you've taken a side. You've had dinner conversations, aligning yourself with that side. You are on board and your friends are on board. And one thing that people will consider is like, man, if I drop the righteousness, I'm not going to have any more friends. People are going to think I'm, you know, people are. I'm saying across. I don't care what the fuck you are. Communist, anarcho, syndicalist, libertarian, Marxist, conservative, Christian nationalist, basic bitch liberal. We all have our political satsangs. And, man, like, if you start like, apolitical is a. What's that?

[B]

Big satsang. Big apolitical. We don't do nothing. We don't.

[A]

Oh, yeah, I'm not even. All that stuff, not for me. And I've tried that one too. It doesn't. It's. Good luck with that. But the point is, when I feel that love feeling that I feel like Ram Dass was pointing towards and that Neem Kroli Bhabha was embodying, it really fucks up the game. And all the time you've invested in being on one side or the Other. It feels like a lot of tools get taken out of my toolbox. How am I gonna shitpost now? How am I gonna troll? How am I gonna like passive aggressively manipulate people or annoying me online? These are fun things to do. But that love feeling, it doesn't invite you to do that shit. You know what I mean? I'm talking about the complete disillusion.

[B]

Totally, totally. And, but you're speaking in big dramatic paint swaths. But even in the most subtle ways, we do this day to day, because it's hard. Like we said in the book, it's hard to transform habitual patterns and neurotic tendencies. Here's ours. Here's some of the things we did. But it's difficult. We don't want to do hard things. We don't. You know, I, I'm off to India in a bit actually. And just, you know, India is very hard, okay? The life there is difficult. You know, it's one point, almost 5 billion people now. And it's just like, and I thought of some situation, I was telling somebody in some situation of getting, maybe even getting to a train, in a train station and the mass chaos that's there and, and, and the things that can happen to really make you so, so uncomfortable. And I said, but one thing, Indian people, they know how to be uncomfortable way better than us. Yeah, that's one of the main problems that we have. And I'm, I'm a big, I'm part of it. I mean, you called it, I am part of it.

[A]

That's it.

[B]

And yeah, and that is part of what's going on here. Aside from, you know, madness on an extraordinary level of, of people who are more attached to power and money and all of that with the normal stuff, that's all normal stuff. But with us, we just don't want to have any kind of discomfort.

[A]

You called it.

[B]

Period.

[A]

You called it. That's it. That's it. Yeah, that's it. Because anyone who's experienced actual like love, love, it ain't comfortable. It's not some feather bed. It's not some soft down comforter.

[B]

It's not the transactional love that we're talking. Unconditional. We haven't said that word.

[A]

Unconditional love.

[B]

How do you get unconditional in this situation?

[A]

You're going to be uncomfortable. You're gonna, you're good. It is not going to anesthetize you. It is not going to numb you. It is not going to like make you feel like what you're doing is the right Thing you're not going to get your righteousness. You're probably going to feel real weird, like writing with your left hand or something. None of it makes sense. When you've got claws and teeth and all of like, you know, your DNA is just like, bite its fucking head off.

[B]

Or wiping your hand, your ass with your left hand. That's also very uncomfortable, by the way.

[A]

I wipe my ass with other people's left hands. I'm civilized.

[B]

No, you told me you went to India and you gave me one description.

[A]

No, my God. My God. You're totally right though, Raghu. It's like. I think there's two things that you've illuminated here. One, if your experience of love, if you think love is comfortable, you might not have experienced truly deep love. If you think. In other words, the idea is that love equals pleasure, love equals bliss. Love is a high.

[B]

Getting something back. Getting something back.

[A]

Getting something back. And because we've been raised in a transactional society, getting something back.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

You have to subvert at the very core of your being. Transactionalism. And you have to give up the idea that you're going to get anything back. You're not going to get likes. You're not going to get views. No one gives a fuck. No one will see it. Nobody knows. God's too busy dealing with other shit right now. God isn't even going to know you did some damn thing just purely from love. Nothing back. And that's purifying, but it subverts. It subverts. And I think that's the idea is like, all of us just have to get uncomfortable. We have to get uncomfortable now because we're illiterate when it comes to this particular language.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

We're Neanderthals. We're just like. It's like. And this thing that you're talking about is. Is you. Do you. It's something.

[B]

It's the hardest thing in the world. It is the hardest thing in the world because.

[A]

So maybe we should go to war.

[B]

We can't end this on that note. For God's sake. What's wrong with you?

[A]

You know what? Maybe a civil war would be preferable to dealing with love. Maybe you're right. Maybe everyone out there is right. What am I saying? Martin Luther King was crazy. Maybe you're. Maybe it is, though. It is like it is. I think it's good to put out there that we have to dispel the myth that there's anything easy about this. Because it's not.

[B]

It's just not too easy to pick up a. Never mind a gun. It's too easy to mentally project out this, the polarization that's inside you and project that out. That is too easy.

[A]

So easy.

[B]

Yeah. That is too easy. And it's also too easy to ignore it all. You know, so we are here. We are part of this. And, and how do we get a little bit. Yeah. What did you. Mdma. Yes. MDMA does do something really important, which is it gives you the. Beyond the notion. It gives you the reality that we sure as hell are interconnected. We are alone.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And this, this aloneness is part of what's gone on is what is going on here. The, the people that are perpetu. Perpetuating this perpetrators as well feel, I believe, that they are completely siloed as a separate unit and that unit needs to be protected. And in that protection, we're going to, you know, pull other people into that silo of separation. That's not just. Right. It's not just left. It's a reality.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That's why I really do feel that one thing we can contribute through sharing is, hey, look inside oneself.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And see what's going on outside yourself is what's going on inside and how we, how do we fix that? You know.

[C]

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[A]

Yeah, yeah. It doesn't do any good. It doesn't do any good. Surrounding the ICE facility in your heart with.

[B]

Facility.

[A]

Screw screaming at your. Screaming at your neurosis. How up it is and how get the out of my body doesn't work. It just.

[B]

Hey, how about what, what about the reality? The reality is that we have these thoughts directed to ourselves that are not much different than what gets directed outside.

[A]

It's identical.

[B]

It's identical. It's right. So think of that, you know, as above. So that's a starting point, you know?

[A]

Yeah, I love it. You always remind me. It's always. We have these podcasts at just the right time. Right when I'm really spiraling into some nice fucking self righteous angry hole. It's Great.

[B]

But the reality is you went out and bought this incredibly beautiful shirt that.

[A]

I keep looking at my chickens.

[B]

It's your chickens.

[A]

You like my chickens?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

My kids like my chickens, too.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, listen, Raghu, I think you've given us more than I was hoping. And I really like that you grounded it in the reality that this is hard. And also some very pragmatic steps, which is just like, start. It's just what Ram Dass said. But it's good to be reminded. Work on yourself. You can do it. Don't expect it to be a walk on the street.

[B]

Yeah, it's not. Work on yourself. And when you get to a certain point, you'll be able to do social action of any sort. That's not the case. I mean, that's a wrong view. Work on yourself while you were doing whatever you can for anybody, for what you believe in, in a completely peaceful.

[A]

Way while you're campaigning for Trump.

[B]

Maybe not.

[A]

Work on yourself. No, you can't. Everybody. That's the thing. That's the thing. Everybody, whether or not you're campaigning for Trump, whether or not you're working for Nancy Pelosi, whether or not you're in the. You're the leader of some fucking Marxist cell of antifa in Portland, I think Raghu isn't telling you, throw your fucking scary ass mask in the trash. Raghu is saying, go ahead, but continue. Go on. But in the midst of this pattern that you find yourself in, start exploring this thing that you're saying. Look into yourself and ask yourself, is there a way to do this with pure love in your heart, not bullshit love? What happens if you go out there with that energy? What happens?

[B]

And this is. Yeah, we're talking about Christ here.

[A]

Yeah, we are.

[B]

Danny Goldberg, who I talked to you about that podcast that I did, he said, you know, they want to, you know, people from the Christian right most particularly want to put up the Ten Commandments in the front of schools and so on and so forth. He said, why not put the Sermon on the Mount?

[A]

That is a very good question. That is a very good question. Why are they going to the Ten Commandments? Let's do Blessed are the peacemakers, Blessed are the meek, Blessed are the poor in spirit. The Beatitudes.

[B]

Yeah, wouldn't that be fantastic?

[A]

What a great criticism of that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. No, that's really great on Danny's part. I love that. I love that. Can I show Ram Dass's new book?

[A]

Yeah, please. My God, I gotta read this. This is good. Oh, it Looks good. You got the Ram Dass font.

[B]

But why is it backwards?

[A]

It isn't for me. It looks right. It's just all the drugs you did.

[B]

There is no other the way to harmony and wholeness, which is what we've been talking about here on the Duncan.

[A]

Trussell Family Hour and friends for new visitors to my podcast. Raghu is. I'm so lucky to have him as a friend. And the Love server remember foundation doesn't just release incredible books, but when I'm out on the road to these retreats, they. There's just. Yeah, that and people get their lives changed. And you know, I think that the. What you were saying about. Look, you can stay on the fucking channel. You know, you stay on. You don't. Don't worry. Fox News is always going to be there. If you want to flip back and listen to Sean Hannity fucking rip into some lib, you can do that. But there's a lot of other channels that you could just try on for size and you know, you don't want to be.

[B]

Not political channels, other channels, other planes, other ways in which we can have curiosity. You can always go back what our lives are.

[A]

You could even do the thing where you have two screens going at the same time. Yeah, you could do that.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And yeah, I think that I hope people look into the foundation because you guys do. And Raghu doesn't ask me to do this, but you guys do some just. You're doing the work that the world needs right now, friend. You and some other organizations. And boy, I would not want to be in your shoes right now. I would not want to be running a spiritual organization right now. My God, the fuck fires you must be putting out every day?

[B]

Well, there's a few here and there. I mean, yeah. But you know, honestly, I just have gratitude that able to do something just even the podcast. I mean you've been doing these for years and years and you know what? Sometimes like, okay, I have to do a podcast. I don't know the person. I do a little bit of background and then I get on with them and then I look at them, I look in their eyes and I'm like, wow, this is so cool to meet another soul. Put it and find out who they are. That's what we need, a little bit more curiosity.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

About who we are and who the supposed they are.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

To bring it into a much more.

[A]

Healthy human non digitized. You know, even though this is technically digitized. This bad example.

[B]

But you know what I mean, that's.

[A]

It you're the best. Raghu. I do love you. I don't love a lot of people out there. You're one of them. And I'm really grateful to you for your generous time that you've given me. Thank you so much.

[B]

Thank you. Thank you, Duncan. Thank you, everybody.

[A]

That was Raghu, Marcus, everybody. Listen to his mind. Rolling podcast. All the links you need to order the new Ram Dass book are going to be down below. I love you guys. I'll see you later this week. Hare Krishna.